Drabbles I: Alex
by Hanah M Laugrer
Summary: A collection of five unrelated drabbles all under five hundred words about Alex at different points, with different poeople, different pairings AO, AlexElliot, etc. EDITED 8.27 Drabbles 1 & 5 have new titles, extra words, and, uh, purposes. Yeah, that'
1. Fear

Fear

Disclaimer: DW and NBC own the characters. I've never owned them, probably won't in the future. I own this little story. Woo hoo. And a laptop and that's about it...

A/N: Another new chapter you say? The madness! A new chapter? What's she talking about? If you've never read this story before, ignore this A/N. If you've read this story before and you're confused by all my editing after I post, read on... I apologize for my obsessive-compulsive rewrites (especially the ones that happen after I say a story is complete), for the lack of a beta when this was posted (I have one now and I have a feeling she's gonna be terrific), and for these A/N, because maybe you don't want to read the really long A/N as much as I love writing them. Anyway, I've changed this a little (there was some prompting from LSMunch to rewrite the first sentence of this drabble, so props to her, yes, that's right, props, because it's 4:00am and I've discovered I shouldn't write A/N at this hour - see drabble #5) or a lot. I like it now. I hope you do too. Tell me if you do, if you don't, if you hate my A/Ns, if you're wondering where Casey is...I'm open to it all.

* * *

She wasn't his partner and she'd never be his wife. She wasn't even really his friend. The definition of what she was to him was unbearable, but acceptable. Something she relished. To have any part of him was to have enough. 

There were nights after an especially difficult case, one that blurred personal and professional issues, that he came to her apartment instead of going home. The first time he'd appeared at her door, he'd told her he'd wanted to go to Olivia. But Olivia wouldn't have understood. She would have wanted to talk. He wanted to feel, to make that numbness go away. Talking wouldn't do that.

She'd led him to the couch, offered him tea or beer. His hands were cold against her skin as he pulled her down beside him. He'd kissed her softly without any pretense or purpose. She hadn't asked questions, she hadn't needed explanations. It had never matter that he was only there because there was nowhere else to turn. She'd closed her eyes and pressed her lips against the corner of his mouth.

When he spoke, it was because he wanted to, not because she had prompted him to or even wished him to. He'd brushed the words into her temple, their bodies close, embracing but at the same time distant and removed from one another, unable to fully commit to the intimacy required for a hug, another kiss. "Sometimes I'm so afraid," he'd said.

She'd played with the hair at the back of his neck. "Of what?" She would have bet anything that he, of all of them, was the only one never to admit fear of anything.

At least aloud, to another person. She'd always believed saying things aloud made them real.

"Of losing them." Not her. _Them._ Olivia. Kathy. His children. Thought it was her he was turning to in his most desperate moment. The same _her_ he would turn to over and over again in the months to come, not them.

She'd stepped away from him, completely then, upset that her skin was burning from even the lightest of his touches. "You have nothing to be afraid of." She would teach him to hold onto what he had and when she was the only one lost he would hold everything that much closer.


	2. Brown

Brown  
Disclaimer: DW and NBC own the characters. I'm just playing.  
Pairing: Alex/Olivia

* * *

Alex's favorite color is brown, like mocha and chocolate and espresso. It is the color of the earth, the natural color of her hair, the color of the eyes of the woman she'd loved. In a way, too, her lover's skin had been brown, an olive tan, so light, almost creamy, if such a color existed in the spectrum of brown. Her hair had been dark when they'd met – almost black, a deep mahogany, with those reds and rich highlights. She'd lightened it over the years with strawberries and gingers and shades of blonde.

Her life had been lived in sepia hues. Courtrooms and desks, suits and eyes. Even blood, when it dried, turned a rusty color. She had to remember that the rusty color was only there because the person she represented was not.

There were five freckles along her collarbone that Olivia had liked to trace with her tongue, playing a torturous game of connect-the-dots on her skin that made her twist and moan.

Now, she stares in the mirror at Emily. She sees pinks and reds and whites and the blue of her eyes, but no brown. Not anymore. The pink is dominant: the color of her skin, left blushing from her shower. The scar on Emily's right shoulder is a dusky rose with jagged white edges ripping into the otherwise smooth plane. She covers her freckles with scarves, collared shirts, sweaters that go almost all the way up to her chin. Even her eyes are red, from crying for the years that she's lost here and the allergies she's come to acquire away from the city, now that the air isn't filled with exhaust.

She stares at the red lips in the mirror and tries to remember how Olivia looked, how she tasted.

She tasted rich and smooth and full.

Emily wraps a white towel around her body and, now, tries to forget.


	3. Love

Love  
Disclaimer: DW and NBC own the characters, unless you don't recognize them and then they're mine.  
A/N: I've left it open as to whom Alex is speaking to in the italicized sections. It was originally written with Olivia in mind, and then about halfway through it changed to Elliot in my mind (because Emily's with a man and my mind just made the parallel connection, I guess) so I didn't specify. You can decide. Enjoy.

* * *

Emily makes love like she's drowning – grasping, clawing at the body above her, needing something tangible to hold onto to keep afloat. Her boyfriend, William, has always found this passionate. Alex has always found it desperate, something to hate about Emily, to keep her detached.

_When we made love, you whispered my name. My real name. It stings when he says 'Emily,' when I'm supposed to hear him as I heard you, when I'm supposed to respond as I responded to you._

He says he loves her, Emily. That he wants her to meet his family, and, maybe, he could meet hers. She'd told him of a large family – parents, four siblings – most still in Tulsa, with families of their own, that she'd visit on occasion. Alex resented that too, the big, close family. She had her mother, yes, but that was it, now. Her father had died years ago of a heart attack and she had lost her only brother when they were children to an accident.

_I've never come with William, even after all these times of being together. I feel like I'm betraying you if I do. If I get close, I close my eyes and wonder about the new ADA and I imagine what he or she must be doing wrong. Because they are not me._

She slips out of the bed, silently, after William has fallen asleep and writes another letter that won't be sent, filled more with questions and professions for a journal entry than a love letter.

When she's finished, she folds it in thirds and places it in an envelope. She writes Emily's initials and a return address – a post office box. She wonders who she has become.

She stands and goes to the bed where William is still asleep. She wakes him, gently, her fingertips on the skin at back of his neck _where I have touched you_, where he is most sensitive. He has a long, straight scar there from a childhood surgery that buries itself deep into his hair.

"I can't take you to Tulsa," Emily tells him, softly.

"What?" Sleep fills his voice, makes it rough.

She closes her eyes. _I see your face. Only you. _"And I can't meet your parents."


	4. Unfinished

Unfinished  
Disclaimer: DW and NBC own the characters.  
A/N: Assuming Elliot and Alex had a relationship before "Loss". This takes place some time after Kathy and Elliot separate and Alex has returned for some period of time… This could, theoretically, be a lost scene from "Ghost" (given the presumption that Elliot and Alex were together before she ever went into the program). I haven't actually _seen _that episode yet, though, so I don't want to say that it is.

* * *

The fan in the window is broken. You keep telling me you're going to fix it. I wonder if that's actually true. I roll over and push the tip of my nose into the arm you have around me, into the middle of the Marine tattoo there. Your skin is sticky with sweat and yet I move closer to you. I can't stand the heat. The man I was seeing in Wisconsin found that strange, because I said Emily was from Tulsa. Emily hated heat and couldn't say "water" without it coming out more like "wouter." Sometimes I think he didn't trust Emily. Then again, it's hard to trust someone who doesn't really exist. 

You tighten your hold on me. Before, we had just a month together. No one knew then and you were still with Kathy. A car alarm is going off outside. You shift and sigh into my hair. I love that sound. Car alarms. I'm pretty sure they don't exist in Kingston, Wisconsin. If they do, I never heard one. I could hear crickets there at night.

Have you ever seen fireflies? I hadn't. I mean, not in the number that you could actually catch in a jar. I'd see one or two, here or there, in the summer, at my parent's house. There, once, I saw what must have been fifty, twinkling in the darkness. For some reason, it made me feel like a kid again. It made me want to swing. I know that's weird.

You wake up, rather suddenly. "Hi," I whisper, softly, into the darkness.

"It's hot in here."

"You're soaked. You okay?" I flatten my hand across your stomach and I can feel the moisture pooling beneath my palm.

"The fan's not working."

"No." You were supposed to fix it. I don't say it. We're both tired. And happy. I don't care about the heat, not right now. I move my hand further down your abdomen, across to your hip.

"I'll fix it in the morning. Or get a new one."

"Okay."

"You can't sleep?"

"I haven't slept since I left." I pause. "Not for more than a few hours at a time."

"Do you still have nightmares?"

I nod. "Sometimes it's you that gets in the car. Sometimes, it's our car and you and Olivia… Everything's gone in a second. Other times, I never wake up in the hospital after the gunshot… we leave everything unfinished…"

"What's unfinished?" You ask, softly.

I want to tell you _I love you_, instead I whisper, "Well, the fan's still broken."

I can feel you smile against my cheek in the darkness, as if you know my secret. "I know."


	5. Weight

Weight

Disclaimer: I aspire to own a penguin and a platypus (because they're cute; but also not really because I'm not sure they would get along with the dog) and the rights to SVU & characters (would they get along with the dog? Hmm...) None of these things are likely to happen, so I'll settle for what I can have: a pair of reading glassses, a laptop, and a couple of stories. Yup, that's about it.

A/N: Ah, so you've read this before - but wait, no you haven't! It's new! Yes, that's right, a brand new Drabble (even the title has changed from "Home" to "Weight" though I plagerized myself. As Christine McVie says, if you can't plagerize yourself, who can you plagerize?). Because the fifth drabble that was previously taking up approximately two hundred words here before sucked. And I can say that. It did. I know it, you know it. It was missing a LOT. I feel much more confident with this 500-word one. I am hesitant (it's in Olivia's POV, so it does break the whole Alex thing a little bit, though it's completely about Alex's return. Does that count?)...a little. There was more, but I wrote initially that these were all under 500 words, so this clocks in at 496 (except the little place-date-time thing and, of course, these headers). I'd love feedback on all the pieces, if you haven't left any, or on this piece alone - constructive, flame, complementary. I take it all.

A/N (2): In case you didn't read the first one (I wouldn't blame you - I can ramble) - **Olivia's POV**

* * *

SVU Squad room  
November 16, 2006

You told me once that I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I guess it's a curse. I never really felt it until you came back, permanently. The moment I saw you again, when I knew there wasn't going to be a goodbye or another loss for either of us now, your eyes were bright. You captured the pain I'd felt the last three years, as if it was your own. I can only assume it you feel it too.

You walk into the 1-6 like a breath of wind, the entirety of the city at your back. For a second, you seem only a familiar stranger, your eyes hidden, your hair different. I wonder now if that's your natural color and if, all these years, you've been lightening it to the blonde I knew before.

Elliot manages to say your name first. It comes out as barely more than a whisper, almost choked. Munch looks over and stands, smiles. There are few people Munch actually loves. He loves you. Respects you. We all do.

You lower your sunglasses and shrug your shoulders, much like you used to do after we'd come in from a snowstorm where you'd forget your umbrella. Like snowflakes, the weight of a Manhattan autumn day slips unnoticed from you, like you've always been, like no time has passed since we discovered Livia Sandoval and today.

I envy the way you can seemingly drop your weight and I will always carry mine.

I put down the file I'm holding and push myself into a standing position. Fin's hugging you, then Cragen, from his office. How he is standing before you before I even get out of my chair, I'll never know.

He kisses your cheek and holds the back of your neck as he embraces you. I think he's always resented the fact that Elliot and I knew the truth.

Now it's my turn. I can feel my eyebrows furrow, involuntarily. I can see you, I can smell your shampoo and your soap and your perfume as I approach you, I can hear your throaty laugh, and now I am touching you, but my heart still questions if it is really you. I think that will always be the case. You've been here before, but that visit had only tortured and teased, despite whatever "justice" it may have brought. As easily as you had come, you had gone again. And that time, without saying goodbye.

I run my fingers along the last place I had touched you and I can feel your scar. You flinch, just slightly. The pain in your eyes is back for a second, until I flatten my hand against you. I think it's comforting; I hope it is. This is how I tried to save you, remember?

You hold me to you and I feel you kiss the edge of my jaw. You whisper, "I'm staying now."

And I feel that weight relax just a little bit.


End file.
